


Never Had

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [85]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, angsty karedevil, can be read as, hopeful kastle, karedevil - Freeform, kastle - Freeform, this is a multiship story people!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 16:46:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11971500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: How can you mourn the loss of something - someone - that was never truly yours?





	Never Had

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is. It just is.  
> It was written and posted on tumblr before the Defenders aired.  
> It can be read as both Kastle or Karedevil. But warning: angsty Karedevil.  
> Much love.

He has witnessed her tears before. More than once. Her face was wet with them the night they met.

They all hurt him, those tears. Every single time. And they do not betray weakness or fragility. They evidence her humanity. Her heart. The tears she sheds, the moments they come, the people she shares them for, they tell a story. Her story. A testiment of what she has been through, of what she fears, of what she values. What has the ability to hurt her, to shake her.

She shed tears for him, once. With him. And hurt him as they do, a part of him still held some comfort that he mattered enough to make her feel that way. That he had gotten deep enough in her heart that she was not indifferent.

If she cried because of him, it’s because there is a part of him that still lives inside her. She still holds it there.

He has never seen her cry quite like this before.

Matt has to hold her to stop her from running. An arm around her waist, the other trying to hold her own, to stop her from trying to remove him, to stop her from running. Going. Away from him and towards  _him_.

Her scream echoes in his head. The pressure of her fingers on his arm, blunt nails trying to remove him, all her strength in trying to get away from him so she can run towards a fight she can’t possibly come out alive from, towards gunfire, towards her probable death.

Because he is hurt. Frank Castle.

Matt is lying on the floor, shielding her from bullets that would not hit her, not here, not at this angle, and her head is angled up, looking towards the place Luke is standing, ricocheting bullets off him and Jessica is pulling an unconscious Frank away from the line of fire.

She screams and it echoes, it echoes long and deep, it rings in his ears and it boils his blood in his veins.

Why does she scream like that? Why does she scream for him?

The answer is there, clear as the days he couldn’t see, obvious and brutal, but he refuses, Matt refuses, clutches her to him instead.

When the shots stop, when there’s silence after the noise of the guns, she doesn’t wait a moment. Moves on the floor, peels his hands off her, even when he tries to keep holding her.

“Karen-” he starts, but she’s already getting up, her heels coming off in her haste, she doesn’t listen.

He is left sitting on the floor, listening to her bare feet against the concrete, running away from him, past Luke, past Jessica, bending and sitting by Frank, hands grabbing his face, shaking him, shivering from the cold and terror of the possibility he is gone for good.

“Frank”, she calls, but her voice catches in her throat and those tears hurt Matt like acid, poured down his throat, burning everything. “Frank, no, no, no, please, Frank, wake up. Please, wake up, wake up…”

He’s alive. Two bullets grazed his face, one hit him in the chest. His cheek and his temple are bleeding, but he’ll live. But Matt can’t bring himself to get up and tell her that.

He hears Karen’s hand loosening his vest and he wonders when was it that she learned how to do that.

“Frank, please, please don’t do this, open your eyes, please.”

She’s pressing her ear to his chest, trying to hear the heartbeat that is clear to Matt, she doesn’t see his hand twitching, doesn’t notice he’s blinking awake.

Jessica is on him, asking about bullets, less than delicate hands turning him this way and that, looking for holes in his suit, but Karen is lifting Frank’s head now, resting it on her legs, running her fingers over his hair, pushing it away from his face, and he is breathing deeply, in and out, relaxing, lifting a hand to catch hers.

“You ok?” he asks and she laughs through her tears, nodding, her hands caressing him with a certainty Matt never had the chance to experience - she was always shy, when she touched him, it was always too early, she never got to go past the “new”, the “getting to know”, even when he kissed her, she was always so careful, uncertain, he never had the unrestrained, the certain, the sure caresses of her hands, he never had that.

How could he miss what he never had?

“You’re bleeding”, Jessica assessed, almost chastising him, as if it was his fault.

“I’m fin-” he started, but she interrupted, telling him to take his mask off. Now.

He took it off and, for some reason, he felt exposed. All the people that  were present knew who he was, they knew Matt Murdock, but he felt as if he was, suddenly, standing there, defenseless and useless, vulnerable to everything.

Luke was talking to Frank, now, who was up again, while Karen tried to clean the blood off his face.

“They think they killed you”, Cage was saying. “I’d lay low for a while. This gives us an advantage, let’s be smart about it.”

“You’re fine”, Jessica concluded, satisfied that he hadn’t been hit, taking her phone off her pocket.

“Let me know the next move”, Frank was grumbling out, readjusting his vest, and Karen was finally walking away from him, and Matt felt a breath coming out of him as she walked towards him again.

“Matt”, she said and he felt his strength leaving him at that tone, that familiar, soft tone, worried, focused on him, she had said his name like this before, once, twice, God, please- “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m ok”, he said,  glad Jessica was distracted on the phone.

“Do you- do you need-”

“No”, he found himself saying, as softly as he could, even as he did need, he did need it, her, please come home with me, please, please, I need you, please. “Don’t worry.”

He closed his eyes when her hand hovered over the cut by his ear, where it bled and ran to his neck, feeling strange when she touched him, again, shy and careful, full of restraint, he wanted more, more, more.

“Will you call me”, she asked and he found his hand closing around her wrist. “If you need anything? Anything at all?”

Not knowing what to say, because he knew Frank was going home with her, to “lay low” like Luke said he should, he nodded.

“Promise?” she insisted and he nodded again.

“Yeah.”

Her hand fell from his face and she stood there in front of him while his thumb made circles on the inside of her wrist.

She turned it to make him let go of her and, for a second, he thought she was trying to get away, to make him stop touching her, but she leaned closed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him to her, chest to chest.

“Please be careful.”

_Please stay._

She was gone before he was ready to let go. One of Frank’s hand closed around his shoulder in acknowledgement when he walked past him, taking Karen away, her hand slipping away from him and he couldn’t say anything, his voice was stuck in his throat, she was gone, the feel of her hug lingering.

He was left feeling empty on another random rooftop, Frank Castle taking away all the things Matt failed to hold on to, all the things he wanted but never had.


End file.
